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Maersk says global IT breakdown caused by cyber attack

Maersk says global IT breakdown caused by cyber attack

COPENHAGEN: Shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk, which handles one out of
seven containers shipped globally, said a cyber attack had caused
outages at its computer systems across the world on Tuesday.

The attack came as computer servers across Europe and in India were hit by a major ransomware attack.

"We can confirm that Maersk IT systems are down across multiple sites
and business units due to a cyber attack," Maersk said on Twitter.

The breakdown affected all business units at Maersk, including
container shipping, port and tug boat operations, oil and gas
production, drilling services, and oil tankers, the company said.

The IT breakdown could extend across the company's global operations, a
spokeswoman said, but could not say how Maersk's operations were
impacted.

With a fleet of more than 600 container vessels,
Maersk is the world's biggest shipping company with a market share of
around 16 percent. The company handles around 25 percent of all
containers shipped on the key Asia-Europe route.

Maersk's port
operator APM Terminals was also hit, with Dutch broadcaster RTV Rijnmond
reporting that 17 shipping container terminals run by APM Terminals had
been hacked, including two in Rotterdam and 15 in other parts of the world.

The RTV report said computers were infected by ransomware that encrypted hard drives at APM Terminals.

The container shipping industry has lagged some other sectors in bringing more of its processes online.

However, in a digital push Maersk says it is committed to automating
its systems to drive efficiency and cut costs, although there is still a
huge amount of paperwork slowing down the handling and tracking of
containers.

Russia's top oil producer Rosneft said on Tuesday its servers had been hit by a large-scale cyber attack, but its oil production was unaffected.

Ukraine's central bank also said a number of Ukrainian commercial banks
and state and private companies had been hit by cyber attacks via an
"unknown virus".

Victims of a major ransomware cyberattack that has spread through the US and Europe can no longer unlock their computers even if they pay the ransom.

The “Petya” ransomware has caused serious disruption at
large firms including the advertising giant WPP, French construction
materials company Saint-Gobain and Russian steel and oil firms Evraz and
Rosneft.

Infected computers display a message demanding a Bitcoin
ransom worth $300. Those who pay are asked to send confirmation of
payment to an email address. However, that email address has been shut
down by the email provider.

“We do not tolerate any misuse of our platform,” said the German email provider Posteo in a blog post.

This means that there is no longer any way for people who
decide to pay the ransom to contact the attacker for a decryption key to
unlock their computer.

“This is not an experienced ransomware operator,” said Ryan
Kalember, senior vice-president of cybersecurity strategy at Proofpoint.

The attack was first reported in Ukraine,
where the government, banks, state power utility and Kiev’s airport and
metro system were all affected. The radiation monitoring system at
Chernobyl was taken offline, forcing employees to use hand-held counters
to measure levels at the former nuclear plant’s exclusion zone.

The food giant Mondelez, legal firm DLA Piper, Danish shipping and transport giant AP Moller-Maersk and Heritage Valley Health System, which runs hospitals and care facilities in Pittsburgh, also said their systems had been hit by the malware.

WPP said in a statement that the computer systems at several
of its subsidiary companies had been affected, adding that it was
“assessing the situation and taking appropriate measures”.

In an internal memo to staff, one WPP firm said it was the
target of “a massive global malware attack, affecting all Windows
servers, PCs and laptops”. It warned employes to turn off and disconnect
all machines using Windows.

Some technology experts said the attack appeared consistent
with an “updated variant” of a virus known as Petya or Petrwrap, a
ransomware that locks computer files and forces users to pay a
designated sum to regain access.

But analysts at cyber security firm Kaspersky Labs said they
had traced the infections to “a new ransomware that has not been seen
before”. The “NotPetya” attack had hit 2,000 users in Russia, Ukraine,
Poland, France, Italy, the UK, Germany and the US, Kaspersky said.

Last month’s WannaCry or WannaCrypt ransomware attack
affected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries, with the
UK’s national health service, Spanish phone giant Telefónica and German
state railways among those hardest hit.

Symantec cyber security experts said they had confirmed the
ransomware in the current attack was using the same exploit – a program
that takes advantage of a software vulnerability - as WannaCry.
The exploit - called EternalBlue - was leaked by the Shadow
Brokers hacker group in April and is thought to have been developed by
the US National Security Agency.

To spread within companies that installed the patch to
protect themselves against WannaCry, the Petya ransomware appears to
have two other ways of spreading rapidly within an organisation, by
targeting the network’s administrator tools.

It’s not yet clear how computers became infected with the
ransomware in the first place, but it doesn’t seem to be through email
as happened with WannaCry, said Kalember.

Pictures circulating on social media on Tuesday of screens
purportedly affected by the attack showed a message stating, “Your files
are no longer accessible because they have been encrypted,” and
demanding a $300 ransom in the Bitcoin digital currency.

The attack affected all business units at Maersk, including
container shipping, port and tug boat operations, oil and gas
production, drilling services, and oil tankers, the company said, as
well as seventeen container terminals.

“We can confirm that Maersk IT systems are down across
multiple sites and business units due to a cyber-attack,” the
Copenhagen-based firm said on Twitter. “We continue to assess the
situation.”

The disruptions in Ukraine follow a rash of hacking attempts
on state websites in late 2016 and a succession of attacks on the
national electricity grid that prompted security chiefs to call for
improved cyber defences.

The country’s prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, said the
attack was “unprecedented” but vital systems had not been affected. “Our
IT experts are doing their job and protecting critical infrastructure,”
he said. “The attack will be repelled and the perpetrators will be
tracked down.”

In a bid to calm public fears about the attack, which
temporarily shut down the country’s main airport and prevented
travellers from using the Kiev metro, the authorities tweeted a GIF of a
dog nonchalantly drinking tea in a room on fire.

Deputy prime minister Pavlo Rozenko earlier tweeted a picture of a darkened computer screen
and said the government’s IT system had been shut down. The state grid,
Ukrenergo, said its system had been hit but power supplies were
unaffected.

The
central bank said an “unknown virus” was to blame for the latest
attacks. “As a result of these cyber-attacks, these banks are having
difficulties with client services and carrying out banking operations,”
it said in a statement.

Ukraine has blamed Russia for previous cyber-ttacks, including one on its power grid at the end of 2015 that left part of western Ukraine temporarily without electricity. Russia has denied carrying out cyber-attacks on Ukraine.

Nicolas Duvinage, head of the French military’s digital
crime unit, told Agence France-Presse the attack was “a bit like a flu
epidemic in winter”, adding: “We will get many of these viral attack
waves in coming months.”

The growing fight against cyber-attacks has seen protection
spending surge around the world, with the global cyber security market
estimated to be worth some £94bn ($120bn) this year – more than 30 times
its size just over a decade ago.